a note to "The Blue Bird" (page 65); but I may add here, that the two monkeys, Briscambille and Perceforêt, which Leander buys of him, were named after a celebrated droll, and the hero of a popular romance. Briscambille, or Bruscambille, was a comic actor. He appears to have been a sort of French Joe Miller, as I find in the "Dictionnaire Bibliographique, etc., des Livres Rares," (Paris, 1790,) the following work: "Facétieuses Paradoxes de Bruscambille, et autres discours comiques, le tout nouvellement tiré de l'escarcelle des ses imaginations. Rouen; Malliart, 1615." "Le Roman de Perceforêt" is a work of the 13th century. Perceforêt is a name now generally given to a great hunter. The allusion to the bad faith and chicanery of the Normans, as I have shown, is not peculiar to Madame d'Aulnoy; but we may presume that the fact of her husband having been falsely accused of treason by two natives of that province, had not disposed her to spare them; though, if not a native herself, her father was, we are told, connected with the first families in Normandy. I must plead guilty to the anachronism in the concluding verses. Madame d'Aulnoy could not, of course, have quoted Gray; but "Heureux ceux qui sont ignorants," must have recalled the well-known phrase, "Ignorance is bliss," to the reader, render it as I might.
The two following stories, La Princesse Printaniere and La Princesse Rosette are less known, and I have seen but two English versions of them; the former appeared first under the title of "Princess Verenata," and recently as "Princess Maia;" the latter was dramatized by me under that of "The King of the Peacocks." They are both of them agreeable stories, inculcating, the one, filial duty; the other, forgiveness of injuries: but call for no additional remarks here.
Le Rameau d'Or.— "The Golden Branch" appeared in English, in a book entitled, "The Diverting Works of the Countess d'Anois," London, 1717. It is one of the most elaborate and original of the series. The corresponding adventures of Torticoli and Trognon in the tower have an oriental air about them, and are agreeably contrasted by the pastoral scenes that follow their transformation.
